


Against the World

by heyjupiter



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Background Slash, F/M, Gen, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:29:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyjupiter/pseuds/heyjupiter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven used to think it was gonna be her and Charles against the world, but all that changed when they discovered that they weren't the only mutants out there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against the World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shiromori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiromori/gifts).



> For shiromori's prompt: _What does Raven think of Charles and Erik's relationship (either as friends or lovers)? Does she know they're together? If so, how did she find out?_
> 
> Thank you to my beta/fanonpedia, [pocky_slash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash)!

**1944**  
Raven was observant; it was what had kept her alive so far. Well, her powers of observation were useful, but her powers to change her appearance at will definitely helped too. Of course, if she just looked normal, she wouldn't need either.

The first things she'd learned were about what kind of kids people wanted to adopt--young, cute, and quiet. More importantly, she'd learned what kind of adults you wanted to be adopted by. A lot of the kids dreamed about being adopted by rich families, but Raven knew it wasn't just about money. She wanted parents with kind eyes, who smiled at each other and at her.

She made herself into the cutest little blue-eyed blonde girl and managed to get adopted by a Carl and Anna Darkholme, from Connecticut. They had no children except for her, and for a few months, everything was lovely. But then one day they went to visit her new grandparents, and the trip had made her tired, and she'd accidentally turned blue in front of everyone at the dinner table. Everyone had stared at her, and she'd run out the door as fast as she could. Her adopted parents had come after her, begging her to come back, but Raven was good at hiding, and she didn't want to be found. She knew what happened when people found out what she really looked like, and she wanted no part of it.

Raven decided to stay out of orphanages from now on. It was too risky to live with a family. She was a different person each day taking food wherever she could find it. It wasn't so bad. And maybe one day, if she tried hard enough, she'd find the secret to being someone else forever. To never go back to her freaky blue form.

Things were okay for a little while. It turned out they weren't even in Connecticut anymore, but in New York, and the houses were big and far apart, which was bad. But they also seemed to have a lot of maids and gardeners and people like that, which made it pretty easy for Raven to get around. Most of these people didn't really know what their gardeners looked like, so it didn't matter if Raven messed something up, just so long as she wasn't blue.

One night she tried a new house. It was huge, but didn't seem to have many people living in it. She waited until she thought everyone had gone to bed, and went for one of the kitchens. She noticed framed photos on the wall and decided to try being the woman in it. She had a polka-dot dress and a stylish haircut and she could reach the sliced lunchmeat on the top shelf of the refrigerator.

A boy about Raven's age came in the kitchen with a baseball bat and a wary expression. She offered him hot cocoa--something her last adopted mother had done for her when Raven woke up in the night. But this boy knew right away that she was an impostor. And he could see inside her mind. He was a freak like her, and so she showed him what she really looked like. He wasn't frightened. He was delighted.

Charles loved Raven's weird talent, and later that night she showed off dozens of different bodies for him.

"Which one do you really look like?" he asked, and she went back to the blue form. He shook his head. "I mean, now that you live here, what will you look like? I can make people think all kinds of things, but I think it would be rather tricky to make them think a blue girl is my sister."

"What?"

"Well, I already told you, you can stay here--I insist that you stay here," Charles said. "So I'll just have to make everyone think you're my sister. So come on, show me what you think my sister would look like."

"That's crazy," Raven said, but Charles looked very serious. She concentrated for a moment and came up with a girl who had blue eyes and light brown curls. She looked a bit like the girl whom the Darkholmes had adopted, but different enough that she wouldn't be recognized.

"Perfect!" Charles said. He actually applauded. "Now, as long as you keep looking like that, everything will be fine."

What he said was partially true. He'd managed to convince the Xaviers and their household staff and, well, everyone else, that Charles had always had a younger sister named Raven. Raven had done a pretty good job blending in with the family. It wasn't too hard, since Mr. Xavier was always busy working and Mrs. Xavier was always busy drinking, and the servants didn't care if the kids were a little weird as long as their parents kept paying them. The Xaviers weren't the perfect parents, but it didn't matter. It was Charles and Raven against the world, and they were winning.

* * *

**1950**  
After Sharon Xavier died, Charles had had no trouble convincing their stepfather to send both of them off to England. He didn't even need to use his telepathy--he was 18, and he was the sole heir to the Xavier estate. (People had thought it was strange that Raven wasn't even mentioned in the will. Apparently there were limits to what Charles could persuade others to think or do.)

No matter. Raven was happy to join Charles, and even happier that there was an ocean between them and their asshole stepbrother. Charles enrolled at Oxford and he found a high school for Raven. She took care of Charles as best she could, making sure he ate actual food and got some sleep. She knew it was hard for him to be around so many people, with all their thoughts pressing in on him all the time. But it was harder still for him to stay out of the lab. He came home and babbled to her about his experiments, his independent studies. She gave him samples of her blood, her hair, her skin for him to test. She didn't really understand what he was talking about, but she was happy to help with his studies.

One night she went out for dinner with Charles and his classmates. They were nice enough, but so boring. Charles occasionally provided mental translations of their science speak, but as the night went on he stopped. She sat quietly, sipping her cola and amusing herself by changing the color of her fingernails under the table. But then she slipped and turned her hair bright red, too. Charles had to change everyone's memories, and they left early, under the guise that Raven was sick.

She was never invited out with Charles' friends after that, and she almost didn't mind, since they were so boring. But she missed Charles. The old Charles. They used to share everything, but now it was starting to seem like he thought she was too young or too stupid to understand things.

After she graduated high school, Raven got a waitressing job despite Charles's protests. She still shared a flat with him, but she didn't want to have to rely on him financially. She'd always hoped it could be Raven and Charles against the world, but if it came down to it, it might go back to being Raven against the world, and she wanted to be prepared for that possibility.

* * *

**1962**  
Raven was intrigued by Moira, the American woman. She didn't put up with Charles's shit, and she hadn't hopped into bed with him at the first hint of scientific sexy talk. When they went back to the States with her, Raven wondered if Moira might become Charles's first sensible girlfriend. It was clear to Raven that her brother needed to date a woman who was at least as smart as he was, and she knew that made for an unfortunately narrow dating pool. She could tell that Moira didn't have Charles's scientific mind, but she was still very clever in a different way. And she was pretty.

But the more she watched them together, the more she sensed that they were not to be a romantic match after all. It was true that Charles often needed someone to look after him--to make sure he occasionally slept and ate real food--but it was equally true that Charles needed someone to take care of, and Moira MacTaggart needed no one to look after her.

In retrospect, then, perhaps she should have suspected Charles and Erik were a pair after Charles had fished him out of the water in Miami. Certainly, pretty girls falling for the lifeguards who saved them were a staple of Gidget movies and the like, but she hadn't expected it to play out with two men. But again--the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. Why Charles had never been able to settle down with a girl. Why he drank so much when he was with girls.

It wasn't like it bothered her that her brother was a homosexual. It kind of bothered her that he'd never _told_ her, but she rather suspected that Charles himself hadn't known until he'd met Erik.

It did bother her that she'd practically thrown herself at Erik the night before she'd walked in on him making out with her brother in the library the morning of their trip to Cuba. Her face still burned at the memory. She wasn't even sure if either of them knew that she knew--they'd been pretty passionate with each other, and when she'd opened the door and seen them, she'd turned around, pulled the door shut behind her very quietly, and gone to cry in her childhood bedroom. 

The thing was, she'd _believed_ Erik when he'd said he preferred the _real_ Raven. Blue Raven. He'd called her perfect and given her her first real kiss--her first kiss when she hadn't been hiding. The memory still gave her butterflies, even though the kisses she'd seen him giving Charles were far more intense. She'd only seen them for a second, but she'd always been observant and it felt like time had slowed down. 

When it came down to brass tacks, who did Erik choose to be with? Her handsome, white-skinned brother. Charles and Erik were alike--they had the benefits of their mutant abilities without any physical drawbacks.

Maybe Hank was right. "Even if mutants are accepted into society, my feet, and your natural blue form will never be deemed beautiful." Now he'd given himself the serum he'd made, the one to make them "normal." She was the only one left at the house who looked different, and she decided to embrace it when she went to join the others in the hangar. No one said a word about it. When she went back to change into her new yellow jumpsuit, she gazed at herself in the mirror. It had been a long time since she'd really looked at her blue self in the mirror. The more she looked, the more she really did think she was beautiful. Snow White had skin as white as snow and hair as black as coal, but Raven had skin as blue as sapphires and hair as red as rubies. Even her glowing golden eyes were beautiful.

No matter what anyone said (or did. With her brother), she thought she was beautiful. And if she was going to die today, she might as well die in her own skin.

When she got back to the hangar, she was afraid the others would make fun of her for taking so long, but it turned out they were still waiting for Hank, anyway. When he finally appeared, she couldn't believe her eyes. His skin had become nearly the same lovely shade of blue as hers.

"Don't you see? This is who you were meant to be. This is you. No more hiding," she said happily..

"Never looked better," Erik added, and Hank lost it, strangling Erik and yelling, "Don't mock me!"

But Raven watched the exchange carefully, and she believed Erik when he said he was being sincere. Erik really _did_ think she and Hank looked better blue. He was just also in love with Charles.

On the jet she tried to watch Charles and Erik without staring. She was eternally grateful that Charles had promised never to read her mind. Yes, she thought Charles had found a good match. Erik was smart, handsome, and passionate--which was why she herself had a crush on him. She was going to have to burn that out of her mind, though. There was no way she was allowed to have a crush on her brother's... boyfriend? Could she call him that? If they got back from Cuba alive, she was going to have to have a talk with her brother and figure out what she was supposed to call Erik.

She smiled to herself. Now it was Charles and Raven and Erik and Hank and Alex and Sean and Moira against the world, and she thought the odds might just be in their favor.


End file.
